


Marśa

by avani



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, MiM Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 00:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13135083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: The King of Mahishmati wishes to consult the Queen Mother. Baahubali, however, just needs advice from his mother.





	Marśa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iwearplaids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwearplaids/gifts).



Baahubali might be a man grown, and a King besides, but he knows the way to his mother’s room as well as any child in need of comfort. He does not send a servant ahead to announce his arrival, but Mother looks up when he enters, unsurprised regardless. That unerring instinct he thinks--he hopes--all parents share is responsible; she only laughs to see his nonplussed expression.

“Sit down, Baahu,” she says, and he obeys. “What worries my son to wake him so late at night?”

He knows perfectly well, but he is still not certain he should burden her with his concerns. He grins instead. “Must I need an excuse to visit my mother?”

“You do when you’ve seen your fill of her in the hours preceding,” Mother says wryly. “What’s wrong?”

Baahubali looks down. “I don’t need the opinion of my mother,” he admits at last. “I ask the advice of Queen Mother Sivagami, who raised this empire as she did me, who loves it as she does me.”

“Very well.” As he expects, there is the slightest shift in Mother’s posture, a straightening of her spine; but all of a sudden, she is not the woman who held him in her arms, but instead the woman who sits below him in Court, passing silent judgement on his actions. 

“You were there when I met with the ambassador from the Kalakeyas, when they offered--”

“Gifts and promises of lasting friendship if we looked the other way while they conquered the Chalukyas? Yes.”

“And you were there, too, when I refused,” says Baahubali, and adds ruefully: “I might have been more tactful about it.”

“At least you did not have your wife speak for you,” Mother replies serenely. “I shall be content with so much.” She pauses. “If you mean to ask whether the Kalakeyas will retaliate, I’m sorry to have to tell you that the answer is ‘assuredly.’ Perhaps not in the next few months, but someday soon, you’ll have to face the prospect of war.”

“I know. But Mother--” Uncertainty sends him stumbling over his own words. He does not, in general, doubt himself, but now more than ever, turning his back on peace seems imprudent. “They were generous terms.”

“They were indeed.” Mother nods. “And the Kalakeyas are men of their words. If they had promised never to attack us, they would keep such an oath--just as they will their vow that we will rue the day we sent them away.”

That is not what he wants to hear. “But at the cost of knowingly letting another kingdom suffer? Only so we may prosper?”

“That,” says Mother inscrutably, “is the question to consider, isn’t it?”

Baahubali lets out an exasperated chuckle. “What would you do, Mother? Were it your decision to make?”

“Oh, Baahu,” Mother says sadly, “that is not the question you should ask of me.”

“Why not? Did you not rule this kingdom wisely and well for years while Bhalla and I grew? Isn’t it still true that the your word stands as the law in the hearts of all true-born children of Mahishmati?”

“Not my word any longer,” she says quietly, and Baahubali wonders suddenly if some parts of her misses it. “Yours, now.” Her voice sharpens, and the one moment of weakness fades as though it had never been. “And if you would ask me such a thing, Baahu, I might add that I would  _ not _ send the Kalakeyas away, nor would I have granted the Malawa Islands their independence as you did. I would not waste my money on public granaries, I would not allow my brother to purchase whatever ridiculous contraptions he takes a shine to for his army, and I would not take it upon myself to supervise the miners’ and farmers’ well-being myself.”

“Oh,” says Baahubali, wishing rather that he hadn’t broached the subject at all. 

“And,” adds Mother, eyeing him, “I certainly wouldn’t have married Devasena.”

“What?”

“I should have sought a bride who hails from a kingdom with rather more wealth,” Mother presses on mercilessly, “who might offer political ties and alliances that we need, who would be less...strong-minded.”

Baahubali takes a minute to imagine marrying anyone else, even someone with all the advantages Mother lists; his mind rebels. 

Mother smiles. “The fact is, Baahu, that you and I are very different from one another--but no lesser. I did not raise and train you to doubt yourself so. You are a good man, with the potential to become a great King--I should expect no less of you. The only way you can fail, my son, is by trying to do only what you think I would do in your place.”

Her voice is so tender, her tone so casual when she calls him  _ her son _ that he finds himself confessing the other issue that has been pressing on his mind: “Devasena is with child--”

Mother’s smile widens, her posture relaxes, and all of a sudden, she is Queen Mother no longer. “So you’ve worked it out at last. I was beginning to worry.”

“How--”

Mother dismisses his unspoken question with a hand. “A woman knows these things,” she says airily, before adding: “Also, she informed me a week previous.”

Baahubali puts aside any comments on the unfairness with which the women in his life treat him to say instead: “I should be pleased. I am pleased--happier than I ever believed I could be!”

“But?”

“I don’t know the first thing about being a father,” Baahubali admits. “No more does Devasena. What if we fail spectacularly at it?” He’s never failed at anything in his life; he would give anything for this not to be the first. 

Mother seems just as unconcerned. “I imagine you will, at first. Everyone does. But you’ll learn, in time.” She smiles. “I did, after all.”

“That was different.”

“Certainly it was. I had two hard-headed children on my hands, and if you’re wise, you’ll only have the one to start.” She rises from her seat at last to place her hands on his shoulders. “Even less than as a King could you ever disappoint me as a father, Baahu. The child will be as lucky to have you as I have been.” She kisses his forehead: a solemn salute. 

His eyes blur. “Thank you, Mother,” he says, and means it. 

**Author's Note:**

> * marśa - Sanskrit, counsel or advice  
> * For everyone who thinks that Sivagami is rather wiser here than she is in canon, you are absolutely correct. But be that as it may, I can't shake the feeling that these are words I desperately wanted Amarendra to be able to hear from the mother he adored--and if we can't have it in canon, I at least want to make sure it exists in fic.


End file.
